


Celestial Navigation

by Kestrel337



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Not Season/Series 03 Compliant, Remix, Return
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-25 04:24:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4946596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kestrel337/pseuds/Kestrel337
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock tries to get things back on their proper course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Celestial Navigation

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [One Night's Morning](https://archiveofourown.org/works/652616) by [kedgeree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kedgeree/pseuds/kedgeree). 



> Beta and britpick by Longhornletters.

      _“Did you really do it for us? Or did you do it to win the game?”_

_“Saving you _was_ winning the game. I did both.” _

 

It was the wrong answer. John nodded once, executed a precise about turn, and strode out of the sitting room. No words of farewell, no voiced requirement of ‘air’, no threat to discuss this when he came back. No indication that he’d come back at all.

Sherlock collapsed into the red chair when the click of the outer door echoed up the stairs. “John...I don’t understand.” 

He was sitting there still, watching the sunlight creep toward a stain on the rug, when Mycroft let himself in. “I’ve had the library redone,” he said, setting a model of Cabrillo’s _San Salvador_ over the fireplace. “This doesn’t really fit the new look. I thought you might like to have it back.” 

Sherlock narrow-eyed Mycroft’s fingertip where it brushed over a discoloration on the foremast, but shrugged as if it made no difference to him. “I suppose. Just leave it there; I’ll find a place for it.”

Mycroft cleared his throat. “It occurs to me that Mummy had it wrong when she admonished us about ‘deeds, not words’. I’ve been too long in learning the value of ‘and’.” 

“What does that even mean? Get to the point, Mycroft.”

“Very well. For whatever it’s worth at this late date, I am sorry. I was sorry then. Both for the damage, and for the distress it caused you.”

Oh. Deeds. _And_ words. 

“It was decades ago. I’d nearly forgotten,” he finally answered, and willed Mycroft to ignore the thickening in his voice. 

“Of course.” Mycroft pulled his phone from his pocket and glanced at the screen. “It seems that Dr Watson may be ready for some...intervention. He’s been spotted at Barts.” 

“He does work there.” 

“Hmm, yes. But not on the roof.” 

~*~

 

No cab was required; Mycroft’s car nipped easily through the afternoon commuters. The ambulance bay looked larger from this perspective. From the ground, it was obvious that Mycroft’s people had over-reacted. John was not...well, technically he was contemplating something permanent, but not _that_. 

 

Not that John’s body language was entirely reassuring, given that he was sitting with his legs hanging over the edge, unmoving, slouched and defeated and...small. Sherlock shrugged that notion off, dismissed it as a trick of the angle, the diffuse light filtering through lowering clouds. It was a long way up, after all. _A longer way down,_ whispered his subconscious, and spurred him forward. He was through the doors, snatching up a blanket, running up the access stairs, before he knew that he meant to be. No calculations, this time. No ‘if...then...and if...else’. No plan. 

No backup.

Also no snipers, which was a plus, but the corollary to that was the inability to predict what would trigger disaster. Bitterness wasn’t the only paralytic; uncertainty, too, could hold one motionless for long minutes while the safety glass darkened toward twilight. John startled hard when the door thumped open and Sherlock stood for a long moment to exorcise the visions that brief flinch had stirred. Stupid, stupid, startling someone sitting on the edge. 

“John?”

His friend sagged, body folding in to protect the vulnerable core. He let the blanket unfurl, let it flap in the wind, telegraphing broadly before draping it over shoulders never meant to slope in defeat. The concrete was cold even through his coat; John must be nearly frozen. Sherlock offered the leather gloves, still warm from his body, but John shook his head and looked back to the sky. The city went grey and silent, lights like cold stars in the distance. 

When it was fully dark John said, wistful, “No stars tonight. The stars in Afghanistan...we used to go out sometimes, on the quiet nights. They go on forever.” 

“I know.”

The air went tight between them. He wanted to say that It had been a surprise to him, too, that he’d been there. That he’d survived. That he’d felt a connection to that place, every beat of his heart a reminder that John had been here, once. “Did you get many quiet nights?” he asked instead. 

“Enough,” John said, and somehow he wasn’t talking about the war, about the endless desert night, about blood and bullets and broken bodies. He meant a bedsit, and official inquiries. Sorrow, suspicion, sleepless nights. “Did you?”

“Enough,” Sherlock echoed, and continued as though there was only one conversation taking place. “I was between assignments.” Between identities, between cities. A tricky passage from Zaranj to Saindak, one right direction and too many wrong, with only the stars for company. “Navigated by the sky, for a time.” 

“Playing pirate in the desert?” John’s voice was a harsh whisper, sand on the wind.

“I wasn’t playing.” 

“No. I don’t suppose you were.” 

The low lying clouds broke apart, drifted away, only to reveal another layer of static grey. Sherlock absently tracked the red-blue shift of a distant siren, estimating distance and speed. Watched John’s eyes follow the sound and was unsurprised when he said nothing. Only when the delivery vehicles began arriving, food and linens and something ambiguously labeled ‘medical supplies’, did John speak. 

“It’s cold up here.”

Sherlock stood and offered his hand. “Let’s go home.”

~*~

 

The lamps he’d left on filled the sitting room with golden light. He knelt, stirring the fire back to life. John stood near, looking anywhere but at Sherlock. His eyes fell on the ship.

“Playing pirates?” 

Sherlock glanced over his shoulder, confused, and saw where John was looking. “Not for a long time. Mummy gave me the kit when I was seven. Much too young, really, but I managed. Locked myself away for days, reading the schematics, sanding, gluing.” Sherlock came to stand behind John, to turn the ship and point out the damaged mast. “Mycroft’s fault. He was so jealous; she’d brought him a whole stack of books about code-breaking, but I got a spanish galleon. He fussed with it, tangled his fingers in the rigging, snapped the mast. I didn’t speak to him for weeks.”

John traced the very tip of one finger over the mended bit, testing the join and finding it strong and smooth.

“Your work?”

“Mycroft’s.” 

“It must have been difficult.” 

“It was. He worked at it for days, gluing and sanding and filling in the gaps. Mummy insisted. ‘Deeds, not words’” Sherlock rolled his eyes as he quoted his mother’s aphorism. “She was all about recompense, in those days, as opposed to rote apology.”

“Hmm. Words are pretty powerful, though. If they’re meant.” 

“Yes. So I have recently discovered.” John’s eyes, reflected in the mirror over the fireplace, endless like the night sky. He wet his lips; Sherlock wasn’t the only one on edge. Which made it easier to admit, “I don’t know how to do this.” 

“What?” 

“John. I am sorry. Please forgive me for the hurt I have caused you.” 

John turned away from the mirror, clearing his throat. “This doesn’t make everything okay again. I’m still angry with you. It’ll come out.” His gaze swung wildly about the room. 

“I know.” He couldn’t move.

“It won’t be easy, going forward. From here.”

“I know.” 

John lifted his eyes to Sherlock’s. They shone with unshed tears, and dawning hope. “Of course, Sherlock. Of course I forgive you.”


End file.
